


Per Aspera

by MadHattie



Category: Zero Escape (Video Games), Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward - Fandom
Genre: Alternative Perspective, Gen, Spoilers for Luna's End, Spoilers for True End
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 09:27:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3169811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadHattie/pseuds/MadHattie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The aftermath of Luna's ending from Phi's perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Per Aspera

            The door closed with the clang of steel on steel. Phi could barely hear the loudspeaker over the sound of her own breathing, fast and heavy from sprinting to this would-be finish line. So this was how it would end. Quark lay heavy in her arms, still asleep even after all this. Sigma was gone. The fact was hollowing. After every single damn thing that they had gone through he had rejected freedom in favor of that bloodstained prison. He had dumped Quark in her arms and rushed back through the door without a word of explanation. But _why_? Why go back to the rooms full of bodies, and the robot that was probably responsible? Why not leave this nightmare behind and run?

            Could it be that Sigma was Zero? The thought had never occurred to her before, but it seemed almost blindingly obvious now. That was how he had been able to get into the computer in the director’s office- no need to break in when you had the password. It explained his insane trust of Luna too. If he was the one who built her then he had no need to worry that she was going to hurt him. Hell, he didn’t have to worry about anybody hurting him. If things had gone sour for him he could have just changed the game. That’s all this was to him. A game.

            As the platform beneath her began to rise she couldn’t help but feel betrayed. The whole time he had seemed just as angry and confused as the rest of them. Had it really all been an act? She couldn’t help but feel like there was something more to this. It was the same implacable intuition that had whispered “That’s Sigma” to her at the very beginning. There was something too human about him, despite his creepy-ass robot eye. She couldn’t bring herself to believe that he was twisted enough to engineer this whole thing.

            The lift ground to a halt and she walked as steadily as she could to the door in front of her. It opened up to a rectangular room clad in grey and decorated with lockers and control panels. “This is the PEC room” her brain told her, but she couldn’t remember if she had actually been here, or if it was another false memory that had emerged from the back of her mind. It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered right now was getting herself and Quark out of here as soon as possible. Working on autopilot,she retrieved two of the anti-contamination suits from the lockersthat lined the walls and took the tiny elevator down to the lower level. Dressing Quark’s limp form reminded her ofdressing the rag doll she had played with as a child, before she decided that the doll would be the perfect subject for dissection. In the end she had to remove his ridiculous hat so that she could get the helmet over his head. Where had he gotten that thing in the first place? She hoped he wasn’t too attached to it. Once she had made sure that his clothing was secure she dressed herself as quickly as she could. With her helmet on she could hear the slight static of speakers and a calm pattern of breathing that she assumed belonged to Quark. She picked him up and, crouching down, slung him as best she could over her back so that his arms hung over her shoulders and his legs wrapped around her waist. She took a few shaking steps forward and entered the chamber.

            She had expected to feel her ears pop, but all she experienced was a loud whirring as the chamber took away the air around her. A few minutes passed and it was done, and she was on to the next chamber, and the next. She couldn’t help but wonder how pressurizing the facility stopped the virus from getting in. Sure, viruses could travel through the air and spread that way, but why would the air pressure make any kind of difference? And why keep the air pressure so high? She had passed through three other chambers to get into the one she was in now, so if each one had removed the same amount of pressure then the inside of the facility was at least four times more pressurized than the outside. She wasn’t an expert in biology or anything related to that, but she was pretty sure that living at such high pressures couldn’t be healthy. And all that was assuming that the information that they had been given was correct. It was possible, even probable, that this so-called “Radical 6” was a hoax engineered by Zero and that these pressure exchange chambers actually did nothing at all. But then what had happened to Quark? Was he really sick, or had Luna just given him something to make him sleep? If Radical 6 was real, and if Quark had contracted it, then Phi feared that curing him would be beyond her abilities. She would have to get him to a hospital. That would be her first priority.

            Quark’s presence in this game baffled her. As she shifted the small form on her back, she tried to think of some reason why he might have been thrown into all of this. For the rest of them it might have been some kind of undeserved punishment or a test of their willpower, but why throw a kid into the mix? The only reason she could think of was that it was Tenmyouji’s fault. Either the old man had brought him along on purpose, or Quark had been brought into this nightmareto give him something to fight for. And how he had fought. Right up to the very end if his rubbed-raw wrist was any evidence. She wished she didn’t have to be the one to tell Quark that his grandfather was dead. She wished she wasn’t the only other winner.

            With a heaving turn she opened the latch to the final door. Eager to see just where they had been stranded for those seemingly endless hours she stumbled out as fast as she could. What met her eyes was sand. Miles and miles of sand as far as she could see. The dunes rolled over the landscape and into the darkness, pale grey in the starlight. And the stars! Phi didn’t think that she had ever seen this many stars at one time before. They were innumerable against the black backdrop of the sky, so beautiful that for a moment she forgot to breathe. And right smack in the middle was the moon. It shone as red as blood, larger than she had ever seen it before. So this was the lunar eclipse that the magazine had spoken about. It must be December 31st, 2028\. She had been trapped in that prison of steel and concrete for six days. Under the light of the bloody moon Phi dropped to her knees in the sand and began to laugh until tears sprang from her tired eyes. She was free. Whatever happened now, she was free.


End file.
